Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
INXS, “NEVER TEAR US APART”
Ben
It was a pity dry hump.
And I knew it, but I still allowed it to happen.
Did she orgasm? Undoubtedly.
Was it her first? I didn’t know.
But I couldn’t stop wondering if I was the schmuck grinding into her, fully clothed, after Mr. Baseball Star Future Attorney had already taken her virginity. I wasn’t stupid. He was a guy with needs, and Gabby was the girl who had fawned over him for years.
I knew she would save herself for marriage, not letting any guy past first base, or she would lose every inhibition and prove her dad right: College was a sinner’s haven.
Either way, she would go back to her dream man while I stayed in my parents’ house, putting together Legos in the silence of a living nightmare.
Gabby stirred, moving her hands between us and drawing a heart on my chest. God, I wanted it to be real. I wanted a lot of things, but it didn’t mean I could have any of them. She sat up, letting her legs hang off the side of the bed while twisting her body toward me. Had I not been deaf and a pain in everyone’s side, no one would have allowed us to be in my bedroom alone with the door closed.
She gave me a shy smile. I took a mental picture, knowing that I’d take a lot more of them since the soundtrack to my life was over.
Gabby stood, grabbing the paper and pen before sitting on the edge of my bed again.
I’m going to miss you, but I’ll be back in a few weeks for Christmas break.
I read it and nodded my response.
Why were you so mad?
“Because I hate my fucking life,” I said.
Gabby flinched. After chewing on the corner of her bottom lip, she started doing weird things with her hands.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said.
She stopped and scribbled more words on the paper.
You’d know if you’d learn sign language.
“You learned it?”
She nodded with a big smile, then her nose crinkled while she held up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
A little.
“Well, go find some other deaf person who gives a shit.”
She shoved my chest, her lips moving a mile a minute, face red. Then she wrote another message.
I’ve been taking ASL three nights a week JUST to talk to you. Why are you being such a jerk?
Because you deserve better than me.
But I couldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t see it or understand.
“Good job making it about you, Gabbs,” I said, staring at the ceiling. “Everyone makes it about them. How they feel. All the things they’ve done. How their life has changed. Unless you can give me my hearing back, then leave me the hell alone.”
You blame me.
She shoved the paper in my face.
No. I could never blame her, but maybe she’d run and save herself if I didn’t deny it.
I laughed. “Still about you.”
What am I supposed to say?
“What are you supposed to say? Again … still about you.”
I hate that this happened to you!
“You. You. You. It’s always about you. You’re in love with Matt. You follow him to college. You can’t stop talking about him. You don’t know how to kiss. You need other people to take you to a party. You feel bad for kissing me when you’re supposed to kiss him. You avoid me because you’re uncomfortable. You don’t understand why I’ve dropped out of school. The whole fucking world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Except it did. My world revolved around her, but I couldn’t tell her because I was scared it would burden her to be the center of my world.
My. Shitty. Awful. World.
So it was easier, maybe even necessary, to push her away.
Gabby stood with a blank expression, then she lifted her arm, making a fist before slowly raising her middle finger.
It took everything I had left, which wasn’t much, to keep from grinning. I didn’t recognize the girl flipping me off. Did I create her? Mold her from my miserable existence? Did I sharpen her with each lash of my tongue?
Her lips moved into a slow and undeniable “fuck you.” For that one moment, I liked not hearing her. It had a grander effect to think she was mouthing the words, craftily clinging to a piece of her Biblical innocence by choosing a muted gesture.
“Did you learn that in ASL?” I smirked.
Keeping her chin high, she pivoted, took all the unopened letters she sent me, and exited my bedroom.
I was the world’s biggest asshole, by plan, of course. I loved her too much to accept her pity. I loved her too much to let her be with anyone but Matthew Fucking Cory.
I loved her too much.
I loved her more than she loved me.